


Floo conversations

by xyzan21



Series: Hogwarts Correspondence [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 7+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, F/M, Floo Network, Good Peter Pettigrew, James Potter & Lily Evans Potter Live, James Potter Lives, James Potter and Lily Evans Potter raise Harry Potter, Kinda, Lily Evans Potter Lives, M/M, Marauders, Peter Pettigrew Didn't Betray James Potter and Lily Evans Potter, Peter Pettigrew didn't betray the Potters, Sirius Black Never Went to Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xyzan21/pseuds/xyzan21
Summary: Seven times Harry floo calls home and one time they visit in person.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marauders & Harry Potter, Marauders & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Harry Potter & James Potter & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & Harry Potter & James Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Hogwarts Correspondence [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729798
Comments: 26
Kudos: 288





	Floo conversations

I.

Harry sat in the Room of Requirement in front of a blazing fire. He was contemplating if he should floo his parents. He wanted to talk to them. He had had a particularly annoying first DADA lesson. Any hopes that Lockhart would be a better teacher than Quirrell were dashed almost immediately.

He scrubbed his hands over his face, he was so exhausted already and school hadn't even begun all that long ago. He wished for floo powder to appear and it did. He made the call and waited.

“Harry? Where are you? Are you alright, darling?” Lily asked.

“In the Room of Requirement. And yeah, I'm ok. Just a long day.”

“What happened, kid?” James questioned.

“Our new DADA teacher is what happened. Honestly, he's almost worse than Quirrell. At least Quirrell wasn't a complete narcissist and let us deal with his failings. The first thing Lockhart did, was give us a quiz all about him. It was three pages long, all fifty-four questions we were supposed to know from reading his biography. And then after that, he let loose a bunch of Cornish Pixies. And because he is a _complete fony_ , he couldn't handle them so he just made Ron, Hermione and me deal with getting them back in their cage.”

“Wow kid, you have really bad luck with DADA teachers. Our teachers were at least adequate. We learnt something,” James said.

“I never liked Lockhart, he was four years below us but he was so full of himself, even then. It is a mystery to me why he was sorted into Ravenclaw,” Lily added.

“Wait _he_ was sorted into _Ravenclaw_? How?!”

“Beats me, kid. I also don't believe half of the things he says he's done. I remember he wasn't very good at Defence. We pulled this prank once on Halloween where we turned all the corridors into a Haunted Maze. It was brilliant. And before you ask, it was harmless, mainly jump scares and stuff. At one point, in order to get to the Great Hall, you had to perform a simple spell. The Knockback Jinx, you learn that one in first year, pretty easy spell. Anyway, you had to use that spell to, well, knockback an attacker, we transfigured a bunch of branches and pinecones to look like Muggle Zombies. It was wicked! And when Lockhart wanted to pass, he couldn't do it. Utterly useless that one. No idea why Dumbledore thought it was a good idea to hire him.”

Harry broke out into laughter. He would have to tell the others about that.

“Did he try pestering you about having your picture taken together again?” Lily wanted to know.

Harry rolled his eyes and began ranting about his Professor. After a long talk with his parents his mood had improved drastically.

II.

Harry was feeling a little shaken, he was staring into the fire again waiting for his parents faces to appear.

“Harry?” James sounded tired. “It's the middle of the night. What's going on?”

Harry wouldn't meet his eyes. He wrung his hands nervously in his lap and worried his lower lip between his teeth.

“Hey, darling,” Lily said soothingly, “can you tell us what happened?”

“I… I think there's something wrong with me.”

“There is _nothing_ wrong with you, do you hear me, Harry? _You are perfect._ What could possibly make you think there was?”

“There… there's this… voice? I don't know. I've been hearing this voice sometimes. It sounds like it's coming from the walls? And nobody else can hear it. I heard it again this evening and Ron and Hermione were directly beside me and they didn't hear it. Also, I think the school thinks we petrified Mrs. Norris and opened the Chamber of Secrets. I don't even know what that is but… yeah,” he said meekly. 

Silence followed his confession.

“And,” Lily started slowly, “what does this voice say exactly?”

“It talks about being hungry and smelling blood and… and wanting to kill and rip people apart.”

Silence, then James said: “Merlin's saggy balls kid, you can't catch a brake can you? Ok, alright, so why does everyone think you opened this Chamber of… what was it again?”

“Chamber of Secrets. Nick invited us to his Deathday party and when we left, I heard the voice again. So, we followed it and we ended up in front of Myrtle’s bathroom. Mrs. Norris was petrified and there was writing in blood on the wall: ‘The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.’ And then everybody arrived from the feast and I think they suspect we did it.”

Lily frowned: “James have you ever heard something about this Chamber? You knew pretty much all of the hidden places in Hogwarts.”

“No, but I'll look into it. And let me know if I need to talk to your teachers or any of those punks. Honestly, who could possibly think you would do something like that? Idiots, the lot of them!”

When Harry left several hours later, he didn't necessarily feel good but the edge of panic had left.

III.

“So _apparently_ ,” Harry raged the moment the faces of James, Lily, Remus and Sirius appeared, “I can _talk to snakes_. And now everybody thinks I was _attacking_ Justin! I _stopped_ the snake from biting him! What the hell do they want from me? If I hadn´t said anything, it would have been much _worse_ for him. But instead of _thanking_ me he's _afraid_ of me now! Didn't anyone notice how the snake _backed off_ after I talked to it?!”

Sirius held up his hands: “Whoa there, pup. Slow down. What snake? Why was there a snake in Hogwarts? Unless you're talking about a Slytherin, in which case I don't see how you could reason with one of them.”

Harry shot him a glare.

“Ok, no jokes. My bad.”

“Where _did_ the snake come from,” Remus asked calmly.

“Malfoy,” Harry grumbled. At the expectant looks on their faces he continued. “Lockhart organised a duelling club. He was thrown across the room by Snape when he demonstrated duelling. That was hilarious. Anyway, when they went to match students together. They pitched Malfoy and me against one another and somehow, he managed to create a snake. It was going to attack Justin, this guy in Hufflepuff, he's kind of annoying actually, anyway I told it to stop and it did. Apparently, I was hissing at it. I didn't even realise until Ron and Hermione told me.”

Remus pursed his lips: “Sounds like you're a Parselmouth. Though I don't know where you would have gotten that ability from. I doubt it's from Lily's side of the family and I don't think anyone from James' had the ability.”

“No, not as far as I know,” James mused.

“The important thing to remember Harry, is that this doesn't make you a bad person. Or someone to be feared or whatever bullshit people will come up with. You are still my son and I love you and this doesn't change that, _nothing_ could. This just means that you have an extra skill,” Lily said, eyes fierce and protective.

“Exactly,” Remus intoned. “People fear what they don't understand or what they have been told to fear. And there has been a lot of prejudice and people giving Parselmouthes a bad rep. Voldemort was the last known Parselmouth. People still fear the ability because of that.”

James was frowning: “I feel like I'm missing something very obvious here. Like I should know the answer but it keeps disappearing before it can fully form.” He huffed in annoyance. “I'll let you know once I figure it out.”

Harry stayed for a little while, enjoying the company of his family before he went to bed, still annoyed but not seething with anger anymore.

IV.

“Hey pup, why do you look so down?” Sirius asked concerned the next time they were on a floo call. He was sitting in the office he shared with James at the Auror department.

“Everybody is really scared of me. They all think I petrified Colin. They keep shying away from me and whispering behind my back. They think I'm the heir of Slytherin and that I want all Muggle-borns to die.”

“Oh for- What is _wrong_ with those people?! Just because you can talk to snakes?” Sirius exclaimed, affronted on behalf of his godson.

There was a crash and then James skidded into the room and fell to his knees in front of the fireplace.

“I've got it! I know what I was missing before!”

“Go on then Auror Potter, enlighten us plebs. What the bloody hell is going on in that school?”

“Petrification? Voices that only Harry can hear and we just found out he can talk to snakes? There's a fucking basilisk in that school!” James exploded.

Sirius looked sceptical at first and then his face dawned in understanding. “Oh, Merlin's beard, James! I think you're right! Ok, we need to inform McGonagall and the rest of the staff about this. Where the hell did this thing stay all these years? How come nobody noticed a _giant motherfucking murderous snake_ in a castle full of _kids_?!”

“Yeah but Harry, don't tell the other students yet. We don't want to create a panic. Or to give the person who _actually_ opened the Chamber any indication that we're onto them. And for Gods sake, don't, I repeat do not, under any circumstances, go looking for it. That thing could kill you with one look!”

Yeah right, Harry thought, as if he _wouldn't_ go looking for it. He probably wouldn't even have to, with his luck it would find him.

V.

The staff had been informed. Well, most of the staff. Nobody trusted Lockhart with information that sensitive. He would undoubtably tell anybody and everybody about the basilisk. Harry had told Ron and Hermione about this, he wanted them prepared for when they inevitably ran into the thing.

Harry quickly strode into the Room of Requirement. The Polyjuice potion had just stopped working a few minutes ago and Harry needed to speak to his father and Sirius urgently. 

“Hey again! I have a question and before I ask; is mum there?” he asked in a rush.

James blinked, processing then he looked around his office as if suspecting to see Lily jump out at any second. “No, she's not here. Why? Do you want me to get her?”

“Eh, no,” he gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe Sirius though.”

“Okay,” James drew out the word and sent a Patronus to fetch Sirius. “What did you do that you don't want your mother to find out about?”

Sirius came bounding into the room and grinned at Harry. “What did you do?” he asked gleefully. “Did you set a teacher on fire? If so, I totally understand. I think I did that about five times… on accident, of course.”

“Of course,” James echoed, rolling his eyes at his best friend.

Harry cleared his throat: “So Ron, Hermione and I used Polyjuice potion. We wanted to sneak into the Slytherin common room. It worked… mostly.”

“Ok, so far I'm not hearing the part you don't want your mother to hear about,” James said.

“Yeah, big deal you nicked the potion from Snape's office…,” Sirius stopped talking when he saw Harry smack a hand against his forehead. “What? What did I say?”

Harry was a little annoyed at himself: “Oh, of course! We could have just stolen the potion itself instead of just the ingredients! We wasted two _months_ brewing that stupid potion in Myrtle’s bathroom!”

James and Sirius exchanged a look, then burst out laughing.

“Oi, stop laughing!” Harry complained.

James blew out a breath: “Sorry kid. It's just hilarious thinking about it. Ok well, on the other hand that's rather impressive. You're in second year and managed to brew that potion. It's rather advanced.”

“Of course, we managed. We had Hermione there. I mean Ron is pants at potion and I'm ok thanks to mums tutoring but I could have never brewed that potion alone.”

“So why did you want to sneak into the Slytherin common room?” Sirius inquired.

“Oh, well, actually we only wanted to talk to Malfoy. But we needed him to talk openly and so we had to look like Crabbe and Goyle. It worked and we found out what we wanted to. Malfoy, at least Draco Malfoy, isn't responsible for the Chamber being opened.”

James and Sirius sobered. 

“I thought I told you to stay away from the basilisk,” James said sternly.

“Technically, I wasn't anywhere near it. Especially cause Malfoy isn't the heir.”

James frowned at him and turned to Sirius: “Were we like this when we were young?”

“Absolutely not,” Sirius answered, grinning. “We were much worse.”

“Ok, anyway, the reason why I called,” Harry cut in, nervous once more.

“Alright, what happened?” James asked solemnly.

“Hermione accidently grabbed a cat hair instead of a human one. We didn't notice until it was too late. She's in the Hospital wing now but I wanted to know if you knew how to help. Either from your time at Hogwarts pranking, trying to become animagi or from being Aurors.”

The men both grimaced, no doubt remembering times they had witnessed when Polyjuice transformations had gone wrong.

“Poor sod,” Sirius commented.

James was rummaging through his desk draws. He pulled out a sheet of paper, pointed his wand at it and said an incarnation Harry didn't know. Then he walked towards Harry.

“This is a pretty standard form for when a transformation with Polyjuice went wrong. She needs to fill it out and here in the bottom left corner, she needs to put a drop of either blood, spit or sweat. It will analyse the damage and tell you how to counter it. It'll be much quicker than anything Poppy can do, especially since I suspect you didn't tell her what caused your friend turning part cat. Make sure Poppy doesn't see it, if you want to keep it a secret that you used Polyjuice. She knows these forms pretty well.”

“Thanks,” Harry let out a relieved sigh. After they said their goodbyes Harry rushed off to the Hospital Wing to tell Hermione the good news.

VI.

Harry sat in stunned silence. He didn't even notice he had flooed his family until Lily spoke. “Harry, darling, are you alright? You look like you're in shock.”

Harry opened his mouth, trying to find his voice. He closed his mouth again after no sound came out.

“Did something happen to you?” Lily inquired again.

Harry shook his head.

“One of your friends?”

Harry nodded.

“Ron?”

Another shake of his head.

“Hermione?”

He nodded, swallowing hard.

“Harry, darling, you need to tell me what happened otherwise I can't help.”

“Hermione,” he croaked. “She… Mum, she was petrified. Hermione and another girl, Penelope Clearwater. Hermione had a mirror in her hand when they found her. She was using it to look around the corners in case the basilisk was there.”

Lily sucked in a breath. “Hang on for one second, alright darling? I need to tell your father there was another attack.” She got up and walked out of the room quickly and called up the stairs for James. Fast footsteps sounded as a response to her panicked tone and then murmuring. Lily re-entered the room, James in tow.

“Harry, are you alright?” he was trying to conceal his panic but Harry could still hear it.

Harry shrugged. “I'm not hurt,” he said quietly.

“Ok, good. That's good. She's going to be fine. Sprout said the Mandrakes were nearly done,” James responded softly.

Harry nodded. “Did you… did you find anything? About how to kill the basilisk or who might be opening the Chamber?”

“No, kid. I'm sorry, nothing yet but we're working on it. We know about how roosters are fatal for them but all the ones at Hogwarts were strangled and for some bloody reason we can't get anymore. And we still can't figure out where it's hiding out or how it's moving around.”

Harry stayed up late that night letting his parents comfort him as best they could.

VII.

“Harry, why are you covered in cobwebs?” Sirius asked, bewildered but very amused.

“Oh, well you see when Hagrid was arrested, he said to ‘follow the spiders’ so Ron and I did.” Harry paused then continued: “Not that we were anywhere near him when he was arrested, of course.”

Sirius snorted and Remus deadpanned: “Of course.”

Peter still looked confused: “So did you end up in a huge abandoned part of the castle or something?”

“Nah. The Forest. Turns out, Hagrid was blamed for opening the Chamber but he was actually just raising an Acromantula. Which is just a really Hagrid thing to do, if you think about it. I still can't believe that anyone would think Hagrid caused the death of a student.”

“You went looking for an Acromantula in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night with only Ron, who is scared of spiders and who somehow managed to break his wand in a freak accident?” Remus didn't sound impressed but the glint in his eyes and the twitch in the corner of his mouth gave away his amusement.

“Technically, we didn't know we were looking for an Acromantula and it wasn't just Aragog. He has a rather large family now.”

Peter pulled a face at the mention of the large spiders.

Harry snickered: “That's the face Ron made.”

“We were lucky enough to never run into them on our excursions into the forest,” Peter commented.

“How come?” Harry asked eager to learn more about their time at Hogwarts.

“Mainly because in human form we never ventured too deep into the Forest and in animal form the creatures stayed away from us for the most part. They didn't want to risk getting to close to Moony,” James explained.

“How did you get away from them?” Remus asked. “Acromantulas aren't known for their friendliness.”

“Ah, yeah that was weird. These big skeletal horses, the ones that pull the carriages up to the castle, I think Hagrid said they were called something with t? Anyway, they showed up, kind of shielded us from the spiders and then I told Ron to get on one of them and they brought us back to the castle.”

The adults seemed stunned. “You can see Thestrals?” Sirius asked. 

“Yeah, is that not normal?”

“You can only see them if you have witnessed death,” Remus replied.

Harry contemplated this then shrugged. “Do animals count? Because I've seen at least a hundred bugs die. Or it could have been my gerbils. Or you know, Quirrell disintegrating when he tried to touch me.”

They just stared at his flippant tone. Then James put his face in his hands and groaned: “Merlin's beard, kid.”

“Do you think that will help Hagrid? The fact that he was actually just raising a huge spider and not controlling a huge snake killing students?”

Sirius huffed fondly: “We'll see what we can do, pup. In future please avoid things that could kill you.”

+I.

Harry, Ron, Ginny and an obliviated Lockhart landed in the girls’ bathroom. Fawkes perched on Harry's shoulder. He noticed the crowd that had formed in their absence. Most of the teaching staff, Madame Pomfrey, Dumbledore, Peter, Remus, Sirius and his parents. Sirius and James were still in their Auror robes.

They all just stared at him. They must look like a right mess, covered in dust and blood. Harry was still carrying the sword in one hand and the destroyed diary in the other, the sorting hat was tucked under his arm.

“Um, hello,” he said, unsure of what to do.

His family swarmed him.

“What the hell were you _thinking_?!” Lily shrieked, crushing him in a hug.

He opened his mouth to answer but Sirius cut in before he could say anything. “I thought I told you to _stay away_ from things that could kill you, not to go off and _fight a bloody basilisk_!”

“I must say,” Lockhart mused. “This is a much nicer place.” He turned to Ron: “Do you live here?”

Ron smacked his forehead and dragged his hand down his face. “NO! I do not live in a bathroom!”

“Touchy,” Lockhart muttered.

“What's wrong with him?” Peter asked.

“Ah, so he tried to obliviate Ron and me. Unfortunately for him, he used Ron's wand and the spell backfired. Apparently, he's quite good at memory charms, that's how he wrote all of those books. He stole other people’s accomplishments and erased their memory. Also, would someone mind checking on Ginny? She just nearly had her life sucked out by a diary which was possessing her for the entire year so…”

A stunned silence then the adults sprang into action. Madame Pomfrey rushed to Ginny and guided her towards the Hospital Wing. Flitwick cast a spell on Lockhart and chains rapped around him. Then after another spell Lockhart was floating in the air and Flitwick left to bring him someplace else.

McGonagall spoke up: “Are you two hurt?”

“No, I was stuck with Lockhart for the most part. There was a little bit of a cave in so I had to stay and try to clear a path for when the others returned,” Ron explained.

“And I was but Fawkes healed the place where the basilisk got me so I'm much better now.”

James took the diary and looked at it carefully: “You said this possessed Ginny?”

“Yeah and there was this guy who came out of the diary. It was Voldemort but he was younger. His name is or was Tom Marvolo Riddle. He did some really fancy flame writing to explain the acronym. He wasn't to chuffed at being named after a Muggle. Does that name sound familiar? He's the heir of Slytherin and he was here when the Chamber was first opened. He got an award for a special service for the school after he blamed everything on Hagrid.”

“How did you destroy that thing?” Sirius asked.

“I pulled out a fang from the basilisk's corpse and just stabbed it. It worked well enough, I think. He disappeared anyways and Ginny woke up.”

“The basilisk's corpse…,” Remus echoed.

“Did you just kill a fucking basilisk? At _twelve_?!” Sirius shouted.

“Language Mr Black,” said McGonagall but it sounded more like an automatic response and not like she was actually reprimanding him.

“I mean, I guess? Fawkes helped a lot though. He scratched out its eyes and gave me the Sortinghat which had the sword in it. After that it was mostly a lot of avoiding being squished or bitten and more stabbing.”

“There is modest and then there's that,” Sirius grumbled.

“We should get you to the Hospital Wing and after you are checked over, you can give us the whole story about what happened down there,” Lily said sternly.

James was still looking at the diary. “If I'm correct, and I'm pretty sure I am, then you just destroyed another Horcrux. I don't know if he made anymore but I think we should check out the last known residence of the Gaunt's. Marvolo was the name of the father. He had two children, his son died in Azkaban but no one's quite sure what happened to the daughter. And Morfin, the son, was convicted for the murder of a Muggle family. One of them was called Tom Riddle. I think that's a pretty good lead.” 

Sirius nodded: “I'll tell Mad-Eye, Shacklebolt and Frank and Alice to prepare to visit there soon. Once we made sure Harry's ok.”

Then Harry and Ron were ushered to the Hospital Wing. Somebody took the sword and hat from Harry and the Weasleys were notified that Ginny was safe. When at last the commotion had died down, Harry told them all the story of what happened in the Chamber from his place on the bed squashed in between his family.

**Author's Note:**

> James, Sirius, Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Frank and Alice Longbottom (who are fine and happy and raised their son Neville like they deserved to) find the last Horcrux in the Gaunt shack. Through some complicated magic they find out that this is indeed the last one and manage to destroy it and Voldemort at the same time. Phew, one Dark Lord vanquished and a second war prevented all in one go. Good job, some competent people have arrived at last.


End file.
